


For Our Eyes Only

by Tijgertje



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Bruises, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Lil bit of humor, Prompt Fill, Very Slight Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:35:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22720021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tijgertje/pseuds/Tijgertje
Summary: Prompt fill for Aloth and the Watcher: "Love bites."In which the Watcher leaves her mark, and Aloth loses a fight.
Relationships: Aloth Corfiser/The Watcher
Comments: 7
Kudos: 34





	For Our Eyes Only

“They are cookies, from my homeland. If ever I am homesick, ‘darkest’ Rauatai cookies chase the feeling away.” Her voice is soft as she sits opposite him on her bed, proffering a single biscuit with a swirl of chocolate in the center and a light sprinkling of powdered sugar. 

“I… would not be opposed to trying it. For you.” Aloth gulps and coughs into his fist, ears wiggling almost imperceptibly. It is rare that he is ever alone with the Watcher, rarer still that she invites him to her quarters with little explanation beyond hooded eyes and a small quirk to her lips. The grimoires they studied together last time haven’t been removed from the shelf, there are no scrolls or maps on her table. There is nothing but the promise of a cookie.

He reaches out for the cookie, but Alchemilla pulls back with a shake of her head. “May I?” she asks.

Unsure of where this is going, he nods. 

The cookie is brought to his mouth and her eyes are alight with expectation as he parts his lips. Biting down, the biscuit is softer than he had expected, sweeter too, but not unpleasantly so. He savors it, for her, mouth curved into a smile as he swallows, then watches her take the other half and listens, ears perked, for the sigh that follows.

“I didn’t take you for someone that feels homesick often, given how you’ve spoken of Rauatai in the past.” 

Her jaw tweaks at the mere naming of her birthplace, but the serene smile remains plastered on. Eyes trained on the floor, she knits her fingers together before sucking in a breath. She holds it there. Exhales quietly before meeting his eyes. “I’m not. I miss things, people, locations, but never the whole. The RDC reminds me of why.”

Aloth reaches out with both hands to rest his atop hers. “Once this is all over, once you have your soul intact once more, we may leave the Deadfire behind. The crew is loyal to you, I should think—they’ll be more than happy to continue manning the Menagerie if that is your wish.”

“We...?” Her yellow eyes glitter with something bright, fragile, tenuous. Just as quickly they darken and she returns her gaze to the floor. “Aloth, I—”

Never before has he seen her like this. In battle she is fierce, demanding; bolts of lightning streak out from her person as her singing effortlessly transforms into war cries. Skeletons and wurms sprout from the loam at her beckoning, the fallen rise to their feet while she swings her sword in wide arcs, never missing a beat. He always shapes her spells around her body, casting his missiles on time to the tune of her chants, and never once has he doubted that she is the strongest person he knows.

But here, now, she is withdrawn. A thumb is absent-mindedly drawing circles around his knuckles and still she avoids meeting his stare. 

“Mila? Be honest with me,” he coaxes. “That’s all I could ever ask for.”

In the five years he had been absent from her life, there were things he could not bear to forget, no matter how often he screwed his fists into his eyes and begged the gods to sheer his soul of longing, aching, craving.

He remembered her waves of dark green hair, almost like seaweed, as he sailed from the Eastern Reach to Old Vailia, wondering all the while if it felt as silken as reeds in the water. He remembered the way she would lift her hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh as Edér cracked a hundred thousand jokes and the tears would form in the corners of her eyes, but just as quickly as they threatened to spill they were gone, her glowing eyes sparkling as the only reminder that she dared to feel so openly, so wholly.

He knew when he laid eyes on her again in Port Maje that she had changed, curled within herself even further. He regretted every moment since coming aboard The Menagerie that he had left her to wither in the towers and gardens of Caed Nua, despite his duties and what he felt he owed Eora in the wake of Thaos’s scorched remains. Regardless of what he felt he had to do, he owes it to her, as thanks for what she gave to him, gives to him still, for opening her heart just wide enough for him to slip through the cracks and find shelter, comfort.

He watches her as her eyes make the rounds around the room, drifting from copies of paintings by Vailian masters, precariously hung on the rocking ship, to baubles and trinkets from a life since thoroughly destroyed. She always insists that she wouldn’t trade the present for an amended past, but he has heard the strained hurt in her voice when she says it—the unspoken things she would change if she had known how it would all unfold.

But it led them here. She must understand that this, so far, has all been worth it. He lets go of her hands and skims her jawline with his fingers, urging her to come back to him. With a whisper his fingers turn warm with the heat of a fire spell, toned down to do no harm, only coax and pull her from the corners of her mind.

“I know I spoke of no commitments, for fear of the unknown. Of what may befall either of us.” His tone is measured and delicate. “I admit I thought little of my words then, so that I could protect my heart and yours.”

She nods, and a few petals festooned around her horns fall to the tops of their thighs.

“If something were to happen to you...” he trails off, eyes clamped shut in a feeble attempt to wrest away the mere idea. “The point I am trying to make is that I no longer feel the way I did then. For you I would sail through Magran’s Teeth and back, through the White That Wends, and farther still, to the East, where no one goes. You need only ask, as I stand beside you, now and always.”

“Aloth,” she says his name and it makes him tremble, his fingers dancing southward down her neck and back up at the honeyed way she can draw out two syllables. “If I didn’t know better, I would accuse you of being a cipher.”

“It has been a while, but I believe I know you. Not half as well as I would like, but...”

“But that will change, in time. Thank you,” she blinks, her long eyelashes batting slowly as her cheeks are dusted with a light blush, spreading from one patch of moss to the other. “I’m not as honest with you as you deserve, for all you’ve given to me.”

“Yet you are honest with all manner of strangers,” he replies with a smirk.

“Honesty and vulnerability are heads of different beasts. If your opinion of me were to lower,” she says, placing her hands over his where they rest on her face, “I don’t know what I’d do.”

Aloth’s hands slide downward again, taking Alchemilla’s with them, to rest on her collar and tangle into her hair. He pushes himself forward to replace the heat of his fingers with the insistence of his lips; they trail down her cheekbones to the underside of her jaw, then back up to her chin, skirting around the lining of her lips. Breath eludes her, lungs frozen, as he kisses her mouth finally, until she kisses back, hands scrabbling for any piece of his clothes she can collect in her fists.

Roses burst into existence, the petals exploding and brushing feather soft against their cheeks as they rain from the base of her horns. As a red petal slides down the length of her nose, she laughs, warm and true, no hiding shyly behind her palms, and apologizes as she shakes the rest of the petals loose.

“I’ve always found this charming,” he admits, two fingers combing for stray petals through one of the cords of hair that frame his face. “You were always easy to find around the halls of your keep.”

“A part of me always wanted you to come looking.” Alchemilla prunes the last of the roses, chucking them into a neat pile on the cabin floor. “What I could not say with words, my body was determined to tell you any way that it knew how.”

He lets go of his own hair and turns his attention to hers, curling a strand around his index finger. “If only I had been fluent in flower language then.”

“We can make up for lost time now.” She ducks her head, mindful of her horns as she tilts her face to nestle into the crook of his neck, right below his ear. “I know—“ she presses a kiss right below his ear lobe—“that we’re not truly alone”—another kiss, this time with the grazing of teeth—“and you’d feel more comfortable if we were at least in Queen’s Berth.” She flicks her tongue out at the bottom of his ear and follows it with her lips.

Aloth shivers. “Perhaps.”

“This doesn’t have to go anywhere,” she insists between nips at the shell of his long ears. “But let me have this. Just this, just for now.”

Alchemilla comes back for his collar and tugs on it, pulling his body flush with hers as she kisses a line down the side of his neck, a hunger spurring her onwards. His body buckles beneath her lips, a groan trapped in the space beneath where she kisses and threatens with teeth. Their hands both seek purchase in different spots—his at the small of her back and hers in his hair, pulling out the metal clasp that keeps it tidy—both of them pulling each other closer, determined to close the gaps between their bodies.

“Mila,” he gasps as she pushes him up against her pillows, straddling him, peeling away the collar of his garments with feverish hands. Her teeth latch onto the expanse of skin where neck meets shoulder, a hand pulling at his hair like strings on a puppet, his body arching and aching to be directed. “I hate to stop you—I don’t  _ want  _ to stop you—but not here.”

She lets go of his skin, and presses her mouth up to his jaw, where he can feel her smile growing. 

“You want me to seek the shore every time I can’t resist you?” Her voice drops an octave and he feels a distinct thrumming in his stomach while her words reverberate somewhere deep within his core. “Do you mean to tell me that after five years, I have to keep waiting?”

“N-Now, I didn’t say that. But I would prefer if...the first time was someplace sturdier. Quieter. Just the once, at the very least.”

“No interruptions,” she hums, and his toes curl. “Though I have a request.”

“Anything,” he whispers. His fingers melt into her hips, an attempt at keeping the two of them steady, lest he become inexorably lost in her movements and ministrations. Never before has the boat cresting the waves been more of a frustration for him, as she huffs sweet peals of laughter into his ear, nuzzling as she is rocked forward on his lap. Aloth’s grip grows tighter, almost painfully so.

“When we’re back in Neketaka…” Alchemilla’s fingers drag down the neckline of his top. “Could you… Would you…”

She pulls away to peel one of his hands off of her backside, and brings his fingers up to brush against her lips.

“When we’re alone, would you do that thing with your fingers again?”

* * *

It is not often that Aloth deigns to come up from belowdecks and bless everyone with his sour disposition. He squints at the harsh sunlight beating down directly into his eyes and sniffles as a wave splashes up on the deck, water ebbing towards his boots.

Still, Edér is pleased to see him. Shying away from the sun and open air can’t be good for the guy, even if he is wisely spending most of that time in the animal hold or in the Watcher’s quarters. Been spending a  _ lot _ of time in the Watcher’s quarters, actually, and it’s safe to say he may have missed the elf always peering down his nose at him.  _ May _ have.

Tamping a little more whiteleaf into his pipe before lighting it, he watches Aloth try to figure out where on the deck he should settle, probably scanning for where he might get the least wet. As he passes by Edér, that’s when he notices it.  _ Them. _ Purple and red bruises trail down his throat in a lazy semblance of a line, from ear to collar, with more peeking out from beneath his undershirt.

“Hey, uh, Aloth? You get into a fight with an octopus?”

Aloth stops in his tracks, the grip on his grimoire slackening. For a tick he doesn’t respond, features scrunching up to try to parse the meaning of Edér’s words. Edér gives him time, blows a cloud of smoke downwind and waits, ever patient. 

And then his eyes widen. A hand slaps to the side of his neck while he scrambles to pull his ponytail over his shoulder, though it does little to cover all of the marks. 

“Doesn’t look much like you won, but what do I know,” Edér continues, beaming.

From behind him, Serafen chimes in, startling Aloth and earning the orlan a sharp glare. “Funny way to be callin’ the captain, I think. Should’ve seen the lad slinking out of her bedroom in the morn, but it didn’t sound like no fight took place betwixt the sheets. Shame, that.”

“Aye, I cannae tell you how hard it is to get the lad to get on wae it, finger some flesh already. Dead unfair and I dinnae why I bother.”

Edér lights up, brighter than he reckons Waidwen’s own head must’ve been, the pipe falling out of his mouth. Gloomily, Aloth stalks back belowdecks, his face screwed up with embarrassment and fury. 

It’s not often that Aloth deigns to come up from belowdecks, and, Edér thinks, he probably never will again.

**Author's Note:**

> [rolls up to the fandom two years late]  
> If by some miracle you have made it this far, then I come bearing gifts!! [A wonderful illustration](https://66.media.tumblr.com/f17dddc4993c6308850bf6c8ea398b93/4c3d73081e083b33-dc/s1280x1920/1754a4abaa24515490f205dc9038a442a5d9f4a3.png) and also [Aloth's horrified face](https://66.media.tumblr.com/6b2b02eeadd7462352d92151faa89da7/4c3d73081e083b33-4c/s640x960/6bb717d4b72ed80bcefc7ee9cc5571de54ff6386.png), so lovingly drawn by my best friend, but I am too much of a coward to put these images in the body of work, so enjoy them as they remain hidden in this author's note.  
> Anyway, happy valentines day!! I'm going to post another fic and then crawl back into my hole, where I plan to write more Aloth/Watcher because this fandom, regardless of how active it is, deserves more content. If you want to chat with me about Pillars, feel free to [come talk to me on tumblr](https://emryss.tumblr.com/)!! tell me about your watchers please and thank you


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